The Crown and the Dragon (26 page)

They saw the dragon, no more than a hundred feet away. As they ran down a corridor, they heard a sound like a rushing river behind them, and felt a terrible heat. Both of them fell to the floor.

Somewhere behind them, a Vitalion soldier screamed in agony as he was roasted alive. Aedin looked back and saw a pile of charred flesh, the flames of the dragon’s breath still licking the man’s scale mail and the stone floor and walls. As he watched, one of the beast’s terrible claws reached through a window and pulled the soldier out. Aedin dragged Elenn to her feet and they kept running.

They didn’t stop until they were through the courtyard. From the gatehouse, they surveyed the land surrounding Tantillion Castle. Seeing a distant tether line where several horses were tied up, they ran across the drawbridge and made a beeline for the horses.

Behind them, they heard the dragon screaming in triumph as it rent men asunder with its claws and burned them with its fiery breath. The horses were a little difficult to mount, but once untethered they needed no encouragement to run.

After several minutes of galloping, Aedin realized that they were headed south. He called to Elenn, but she showed no signs of slowing, or even of hearing him, so he pulled alongside her and reined in her horse to a trot.

“Iliak is north,” he said. “Isn’t that where you said we need to be tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” she said, “but first we have to kill the dragon.”

“Is that all? I think there’s still another crow monster on the loose. Want to knock that off tonight, too?”

Elenn looked troubled. “Please be serious.”

“I’m trying,” said Aedin, “but going after the dragon is a sick joke. Take a look behind you, my Lady of Adair.” He pointed back towards Tantillion Castle, where thick black smoke poured up into the sky. “That was one of the most heavily fortified positions in Deira, and that thing scooped out soldiers for dinner like a bear eating honeycomb.”

“You’re looking at this wrong,” she said. “You’re only seeing the physical reality.”

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”

“Reality is so much richer than what most people perceive,” she said. “Expand your vision, Aedin. Two weeks ago, you thought the Paladin and the Falarica both legends. Now here they are before you. What does that tell you?”

“That we shouldn’t press our luck, since we’ve already had more than our share of miracles.”

Elenn smiled. “Keep poking fun if you want, but I know you want to believe. You’re still the boy who believed in King Elfraed and swore an oath to protect his homeland.”

“Fine,” said Aedin. “Let’s go slay the dragon. But we’re still going the wrong way. Corvus said it has to die where it was born.”

“You think it was born on Mount Iliak?”

“Iliak is its lair,” said Aedin. “Everyone knows that. It’s almost directly in the center of dragon country.”

“That may be where it sleeps,” said Elenn, shaking her head, “but that is not where it was born. My Aunt Ethelind said it emerged from a rent in the sky over the sea at Drumney beach.”

“It can’t have been born in the sky,” said Aedin. “Even birds are born in their nests.”

Elenn opened her mouth to argue with him, but Aedin held up a hand to cut her off. “I was at Drumney, too.”

“How old are you?”

“That's not important.” He took a deep breath. “I saw it come out of the clouds. That was no mewling, fresh-born babe. That was a fully formed, adult monster. Believe me.”

“This dragon is not like any other ordinary beast,” said Elenn. “Who can say what its birth would be like?”

Aedin shrugged. “It eats,” he said. “And if it eats, it’s ordinary.”

“A neat theory,” Elenn laughed, “but how do you explain it never being seen before Drumney beach? If it is an ordinary creature, and it was born at Iliak, surely it would have been seen numerous times as it grew to adulthood.” She raised her eyebrows.

Aedin thought for a while but could see no flaw in this reasoning. “You sound like your aunt.”

“Thank you,” said Elenn, with quiet pride.

They rode south toward the coast.

***

Chapter Thirty-Six

Although Aedin still feared that they might be going in the wrong direction, he led the way toward Drumney Beach—the very place he had seen his kin, his king, and his country’s hopes for freedom consumed in flame. He shivered, and wondered if he would meet death the same way his Scylfing cousins had.

He glanced over at Elenn, who looked completely calm and serene. He took a deep breath, and told himself to trust her.

Two hours after leaving Tantillion, they reached the sea cliffs that ran from Drumney all the way to Baiohaemum. They turned west, and as the day wore on they rode toward the fiery red sunset.

In the twilight, they dismounted and led their horses, allowing them to rest. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to risk losing a horse in the fading light. Elenn still had to reach Mount Iliak by dawn for the coronation—assuming they survived the night.

Aedin’s horse whinnied anxiously and tossed its head, its ears rigid and pointing. He tried to calm it, but it continued to dance about, frightened. Looking up at the sky, he saw that the clouds were still lit with orange and red, even though the sun had set. The dragon was near. He quickly hopped up on his mount and stood high in the stirrups, scanning the horizon.

“Elenn, get back on the horse.”

“We’ve only been walking them a few minutes,” she said. “And the moon won’t be up for hours.”

He drew Strabus’s Baiowarian ring-hilt sword. “Elenn,” he said, “mount up.”

She put her foot in the stirrup and swung up to the saddle. They pushed ahead at a brisk trot, although the night was growing darker. Ring-sword in hand, Aedin took the lead. He kept the horses close to the tree line. The ground was rougher there, but he didn’t want the dragon to catch them out in the open.

As the sea cliffs started to descend to the lower bluffs that ended at Drumney Beach, they heard in the distance a bestial scream. The horses reared, trying to buck them off and bolt. As he struggled to control his mount, he cast his eyes in every direction. In the gathering darkness, he could see no sign of the dragon but the glow of fire here and there in the forest.

“Where is it?” cried Elenn.

“Can’t you tell? I thought you shared some bond with the thing.”

Without warning, the dragon appeared out of the smoke a hundred yards ahead of them, belching out fire in every direction. Aedin instantly spurred his horse into the trees, and Elenn followed. Behind them, he heard another terrible scream that seemed to be coming closer.

He held the reins loose and let his mount run, without really trying to steer it one way or another. Although it still might stumble over a tree root, he knew the animal was even more eager to flee the dragon than he was. So he gave the horse its head, trusting it to pick its own path through the yews and maples.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Aedin did not see the dragon. Elenn was close behind him, barely visible in the smoke and gloom.

“Wrong way!” she cried, pointing back behind them. “The beach is west!”

Aedin grimaced. The dragon was also west—or had been when last he had seen it. Of course, it could be almost anywhere now. Turning his face upward, he scanned the evening sky, but between the smoke from the burning trees and the leafy cover that they were counting on to keep them hidden from the dragon, he saw nothing.

“So let it be,” he muttered, turning his mount around to go west. This took some doing, as the horse did not want to go back that way. Neither did Elenn’s. With some coaxing, though, the two of them eventually got their mounts headed back toward Drumney beach.

They moved at a slow trot. Aedin’s heart was pounding and he swiveled constantly in his saddle, watching and listening carefully for any sign of the dragon.

Elenn didn’t look around. Although it was hard to tell in the dark, Aedin thought that she was looking at him. Finally, she reined in her horse.

“This is wrong,” she said.

Aedin circled back to her, confused.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “You were right. We need to face reality.” She handed him a leather pouch.

Opening it, he found the bundle of cloth in which she had wrapped the Falarica. “Why are you giving this to me?”

“Take the Falarica to the coronation. The Sisters don’t need me there, just the horn.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he said. “We have a dragon to slay, remember?”

“It’s after me,” she said. “Somewhere up in all that smoke, it’s searching for me. I can feel it, here.” With one hand, she patted her chest, just where the collarbones met.

“I thought you were going to put this back together,” said Aedin, shaking the pouch at her. “You told me that was your destiny. You said the Paladin would reunite the clans, put this country back together, and heal the land.”

“Corvus said that was my destiny,” said Elenn, “and maybe I shouldn’t have told you. The man was insane. And evil. I’m not sure we can believe anything he said.”

“Then why are we here?” he asked. “Why did you tell me to take you to Drumney beach? Gods, why did you ask me to take you to the Leode in the first place? You made me believe again. So, believe in yourself—in your own gifts, your own destiny!”

She dismounted and led her horse to him, handing him the reins. “I’ve made my decision. I’m going to face this dragon alone.”

“Over my dead body,” he said, leaping off his own horse.

Elenn looked up at him. “Don’t you see that’s what I am trying to avoid?” she said, her voice choked. “I don’t want another living soul to die because of me.”

“It’s your choice if you want to run away from me,” said Aedin, “but it’s my choice if I want to follow you.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but her words were lost as a hideous shriek pierced the air. The billowing clouds of dark smoke parted for a moment as the dragon descended, breathing out fire and setting the nearby trees ablaze.

The horses reared and fled, desperately. So did Elenn, running south, out of the trees. Aedin raced after her, the pouch with the Falarica clutched in one hand and his sword held in the other.

As they left the burning yews and maples behind them, the light from the forest fires revealed that they were only fifty yards or so from the sea cliffs. Drumney beach was perhaps a league to the west. They were close. But not close enough to outrun a dragon in flight.

A mighty roar echoed through the skies, and the dragon crashed to the ground in front of Elenn, its immense weight shaking the very earth. She tried to run around it to the right, but the beast cut her off with a blast of its fiery breath, forcing her to scramble backward.

As she retreated, Aedin ran straight toward the beast, waving Strabus’s ring-sword and shouting ferociously. The dragon bellowed a challenge at him, its serpentine neck uncoiling. Aedin stopped, unwilling to come within reach of its teeth and claws.

Watching the dragon unfold its wings to their maximum span, he was reminded of a goose hissing and stretching out its wings to warn off a hungry predator.

“It’s afraid of you!” he cried.

“You too!” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. Elenn was the Paladin, and the beast was linked to her somehow, but why would it have any fear of an ordinary man like himself? Then he looked down at his left hand, in which he held the leather pouch containing the two halves of the Falarica. The dragon wasn’t afraid of him—it was afraid of what he carried.

“Move!” shouted Elenn.

The dragon breathed out a narrow lance of flame, and Aedin had to throw himself out of the way to keep from being seared like a piece of mutton. As he jumped, he rolled and came up running, which allowed him to avoid a strike from the dragon’s claws, which raked furrows in the earth where he had been a split-second before.

The dragon growled and advanced, walking on stumpy hind legs and its clawed wings. As Aedin backed away, ring-sword held protectively in front of him, he realized two things. First, the dragon might be afraid of them, but it would still kill them both unless they found a way to defeat it. Second, his sword might not hurt the dragon—but the Falarica could. And it was in the wrong hands.

With a cry, Aedin threw Elenn the leather pouch containing the Falarica. As it arced over the dragon, the beast reared up and swatted the pouch down with one of its wings. In the darkness, Aedin couldn’t see where the pouch had fallen. Had it been knocked into the sea?

Apparently, Elenn had a better vantage, because she immediately raced toward a spot on the edge of the cliff, on her side of the dragon. Aedin wasn’t the only one to notice her dash. Twisting its sinuous neck to watch her run, the dragon bellowed in anger. As the monster filled its lungs to breathe out flame, Aedin let loose a battle cry and charged straight toward it, slashing at its wings and front claws with his ring-sword.

Contemptuous of his attack, the dragon didn’t even look at him. It turned toward Elenn and flicked Aedin away with one sweep of its massive tail. This snapped Aedin’s right arm, knocked him off his feet, and sent his ring-sword flying. Still, it must have distracted the dragon enough to ruin its aim, because Elenn emerged miraculously unscathed from the smoke and flame that the monster spewed in her path.

Scrambling to his feet, holding his useless right arm, Aedin saw Elenn snatch up the pouch that held the two halves of the Falarica. The dragon drew closer, snapping its fearsome jaws and hissing. Elenn backed heedlessly toward the cliff face, her face white with fear, looking almost hypnotized.

“Elenn!” Aedin shouted desperately. “Use your conjuring! Do a spell or a charm or something!”

An idea flickered across Elenn’s face, and for an instant she met Aedin’s eyes. “Time for a magic trick,” she called out with a smile. Then she ran and leapt off the cliff.

The dragon screamed in anger and dove after her. Aedin, too, chased after her, but by the time he reached the edge of the cliff, Elenn had disappeared. In the dark, he could only assume that she was somewhere below the waves. Above the sea, the dragon flew in a great circle, like an eagle looking for a fish.

“Devil take you, Elenn of Adair,” Aedin muttered, “I told you before that’s not magic.”

Perhaps because she knew how much the impact would hurt, Elenn remained conscious this time when she plunged into the water. She heard, saw, and felt the torrent of flame hitting the waves just above her. But the sea protected her, cradled her, sang to her.

As the light from the dragon’s flames disappeared, the sea became dark. She was alone. She realized that she was slowly drifting downward. Was she drowning again? She tried moving her arms and legs, and found that they responded normally. So why was she sinking? Perhaps there was some purpose to this, some greater power at work.

Elenn closed her eyes and prayed.
Gods of my fathers
, she pronounced silently, beginning as her mother had taught her. Then she stopped. Her throat constricted with emotion as she realized that unlike most people who began prayers this way, she actually did have more than one father. Both had given their lives to protect her. And both of them were surely looking down on her now.

Gods of my father, Ethelward Barethon
, Elenn continued.
Gods of Maiwenn, my sister and secret mother. Gods of Mathis and Kaiteryn of Adair, my grandparents, who loved me and raised me as their own. Gods of my Aunt Ethelind, who carried the burden of remembrance, and who died protecting me. Gods of all the Deirans, past and future, hear my prayer, here under the waves.

You gave us all this green and fertile land. You gave us the rivers and the flowers and the blue sky and the wind that blows through my hair. You gave us love and laughter and justice.

I do not know if I am the Paladin. But I will be an instrument in your hands, to serve my people. I know you can deliver us from oppression and from terror. Please, hear my prayer and save my people. So let it be.

Opening her eyes, Elenn saw nothing but blackness. She wondered how far down she was, and how long she had been under the waves. She wondered which way was up. Then, she realized she was hearing music—a song that was weirdly familiar.

An uncanny light began to glow in front of her, growing slowly brighter. Likewise, the music was getting louder. Something was moving closer. She was able to distinguish several distinct forms, all of them emitting a wondrous light.

They had the shape of women, their long hair streaming out behind them, slowly waving in the current. Their mouths were open, and they sang to her. She had seen creatures like these before, a week ago, a lifetime ago, when she was trapped in the pool under the Cataracts. Aedin had called them nymphs, but Elenn still thought they looked like angels.

Listening to their song, she remembered when she had heard it before. Once, when she had been dying under the water. It had sounded ethereal and lovely then. But she had heard the nymphs a second time that night in the Leode when she entered the Glyderinge. There, the song had sounded like sinister whispers and dreadful screeches.

Why? Because it was out of place. The song of the nymphs was only beautiful underwater. Somewhere, there was a proper place for this dragon. Somewhere, this monster would be beautiful. But not here. And so it had to be removed from this world, sent back to its proper place.